Metallica’s James Hetfield: We’ve Got Enough Material for a New Album

Even though James Hetfield was recently quoted as saying Metallicahadn't started writing for their next album, fans shouldn't worry about creativity being a problem. Hetfield says in a new interview with Billboard that the band has enough material to start an album right now, but the biggest issue is finding time in their schedule to focus on it.

The frontman explains, "I want it done yesterday and [Orion Music + More] and this movie is keeping us pretty busy at this point and it's taking a lot of time and effort. We've been touring some obscure places. I guess basically what we're trying to do is pay for this movie, so touring is keeping us from getting in there and finishing the record. Right now the focus is the movie."

Hetfield says the group has begun the early stages of putting their next record together, but cautions, "We've gone through maybe one-tenth of the material that's on our riffs CDs. We've got enough for an album, we just haven't had enough time to really focus on it and dial in and start whittling it into these masterpieces hopefully."

Bassist Robert Trujillo added that the band's work ethic is really strong, but it's because of that that they often take longer to get things done. "[It's] because we're sitting there and sometimes we're analyzing things," says Trujillo. "I mean, for every one lyric, Hetfield has, like, three lyric possibilities. But I can tell you this, the grooves and the riffs that are already on the radar are really, really awesome. We've still got more riffs to go through and jam out and throw into the process, but we're getting there and we'll have something great, hopefully, in the next year."

In the interim, fans can look forward to the 'Metallica Through the Never' 3D film coming in September. The band just took the movie to the Cannes Film Festival to show it off for potential overseas backers.